Another game of 'find that leak'!

Before we fit our new bed, we need to locate where these puddles are coming from!  We thought water might be coming through the rear vents...

Having taken the interior carpet and boards out, we found that the insulation was somewhat soggy.

There was also quite a lot of rust, so we bought some of this...

 It works like magic! 

Leaking windows in the hightop

To my (Amy's) dismay, before all the pretty things can go in the van, there are a number of 'boring jobs' we have to do, including fitting new windows into the high top of the van, as they were both VERY leaky.  When we took the window out, we found out why - both the outer seal and the rubber on the sliding window had perished...

This proved an interesting part to replace when it came to finding the right seals and rubbers, as they were rather an unusual shape.

After quite a bit of research, we found someone who could provide the right sized/shaped window and seal.  The whole process has taken a lot longer than we had hoped, so Amelie was sitting on the drive with a tarpaulin over head for a number of weeks so as not to let the rain in to this rather large hole...

Thankfully, the window is now in place.  It which took quite a bit of washing up liquid, a bike tyre lever and a lot of elbow grease, but we got there in the end! 

More pretties by Amy!

When I was little, I used to love the Flower Fairies, so I couldn't resist buying these door knobs for our cupboards and drawers!

My favourite one is the one below as it reminds me of photos of me and my sister Emily, whose name inspired the name of our van.  It had to be 'Amelie' though, so that the 'FBA' at the end of the registration could stand for 'Fun Bus Amelie'! 

I also bought these door knobs for other cupboards in the van - hopefully they'll go nicely with our curtains and bunting.

Brighton Breeze October 2014 - blog by Amy

We jumped into our T25 after work and headed to Hook Road Arena, Epsom, where we found a field of fellow campervanners - it was very exciting!  However, we were certainly the least prepared... we hadn't had enough time to put the units/cooking equipment back in, and we didn't have any interior lighting.  So while everyone else sat in their lovely vans with their lights on, cooking dinner... we enjoyed a takeaway pizza, a bottle of wine (which we drunk from the bottle as we also forgot to pack glasses) whilst constantly winding up our eco-friendly (but not very useful) torch!  It was great fun though.

It was well worth the drive to Epsom, what a view to wake up to...

We found a friend too!

After breakfast, we all lined up and prepared to drive to Madeira Drive, Brighton.

I think we can tell who rules the roost in this camper...

The convoy was quite a spectacle as you can imagine - people were stopping to take photos of all the vans as they passed... all of the vans apart from ours :-(  Poor Amelie!  We love her though!

It wasn't long before we started seeing older vans by the side of the road.  In fact, there was at least one in the morning that wouldn't start, so at least we made it all the way there!

The journey to Brighton went well and there were hundreds of campervans on Madeira Drive when we got there.

It was good to get some ideas from the other vans there.  I like these eyelids!

To keep in with the 'Breeze' theme, we had lunch at Breeze Brasserie which is in Trafalgar Street.  The food was amazing and there was a great atmosphere, I'd thoroughly recommend it!

We had a brilliant weekend and I managed to get a hippy headband at last...

Amy's first post... pretty bits for the van!

My first post at last!  As the official 'interior designer' of our T25, I thought I'd share some of the nicer things we've acquired for the van!

We spent a lot of time on Pinterest pinning photos of other campervans.  Initially, we were going to go for a bright orange theme, as we really liked the T25s with an orange exterior.  However, having bought a tester pot of paint, we realised bright orange might be a little too much on the inside, so we've gone for a Cath Kidston/shabby chic look instead.

The rock and roll bed foams and covers are made with 'Duckegg' fabric from VW Camper Curtains Ltd  The curtains are also from there, and they are 'Charnwod Rose - Duckegg' fabric.  Initially we wanted the rock and roll bed covers to be 'Duckegg Gingham', but the fabric wasn't strong enough to have as a seat, so Sam's mum kindly made us some cushions from the same material - thanks Chris!   

T25 bed, curtains and cushions